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Reflection on Gamification Research

Gamification builds motivation, ownership, choice, and accountability for teachers to receive
new training, learning, and practice into their daily instruction. Gamification for professional
learning develops an attitude where teachers have a changed perspective towards learning and
gain ownership in the process (Kiryakova, Angelova, & Yordanova, 2014). Gamification is
mentioned to increase the application of new knowledge and better serve in helping employees
assess their own levels of understandings, strengths, and weaknesses.

What Worked?

Through other initiatives and case studies there are some lessons that can be learned and
applied towards adapting a gamification approach for professional learning model. First,
Lapowsky (2015) states that for a project implementation to be successful it is necessary to
understand why the problem needs to be corrected and what is necessary to support it being
able to happen. Ultimately, I believe that the decisions for instructional technology or teacher
development need to be based on what is important to support the needs of the staff and
students rather than an enforced process (Lapowsky, 2015). Duarte (2013) stated that it is
important to remember that when presenting a new idea and generating buy-in, the leader is
not the hero of the idea, and to get an idea won over and believed in, it is ultimately up to the
audience. I have learned that it is the audience who holds the power, and the presenter of the
idea has the responsibility to connect and convey the idea, so it is meaningful and relatable
(Duarte, 2013). Through these case studies some lessons that I have learned are the necessary
prerequisites such as having the proper support, technical equipment and needed leadership or
curriculum (UNESCO, 2012). In the UNESCO case study in Africa and the Middle East, those
projects were most effective when they started smaller in scale and built their resources in
slower phases (UNESCO, 2012). Through collaborative leadership, the US Department of
Education stated that goals need to be clearly communicated through shared input in order for
any innovative project to work successfully. Hence, if a new project is going to be effective there
needs to be an established mindset of trying new innovative ideas (US Department of
Education).

What could be done better?

I believe a gamification approach only works best if there is a well-founded idea of a growth
mindset to learn through failure, in which the gamification platform allows for the learners to
repeat their learning if needed (Kiryakova, Angelova, & Yordanova, 2014). Furthermore, there
needs to be the right amount of emphasis placed upon the use of badges, levels, or points, in
which learners do not receive it when it was expected or feel less important (Kopcha, Ding,
Neumann, & Choi, 2016). Another problem to consider in the use of gamification is that
ultimately participation is based on a voluntary basis (Surendeleg, Murwa, Yun, & Kim 2014).
Gamification is best utilized when there is choice in participating and selecting the learning.
Thus, considering how gamification is based on a voluntary basis, it also leads to the type of
motivation it encompasses. It is the ultimate goal that learners are motivated for the intrinsic
gains and the gamified approach is simply a layer of engagement, yet there is the potential risk
that many learners could be focused on the prizes and recognition rather than learning and
developing their skills (Muntean, 2011).
What are some lessons to be learned?

I believe that gamification will continue to progress in its usage with educators as the learners
due to the changing nature of who primarily shapes the population of educators. Many of the
research articles that been published discuss the benefits of gamification in the classroom with
students as the users, however, there has not been a lot of published research on the practice,
use, or implementation of gamification with teachers as the users for the learning. Kopcha,
Ding, Neumann, and Choi (2016) concluded in their research that it is important that further
exploration be completed of gamification with teachers as the learners and on a larger scale of
teachers using this method to gain better results on its effectiveness for their instruction.

References:
Duarte, Nancy. (2013). Resonate: Present visual stories that transform audiences. John Wiley & Sons.
http://resonate.duarte.com/#!page0

Kopcha, T. J., Ding, L., Neumann, K. L., & Choi, I. (2016). Teaching technology integration to k-12 educators: A
‘Gamified’approach. TechTrends, 60(1), 62-69.

Kiryakova, G., Angelova, N., & Yordanova, L. (2014). Gamification in education. Proceedings of 9th International
Balkan Education and Science Conference.

Lapowsky, I. (2015). What schools must learn from LA’s iPad debacle. Wired.

Muntean, C. I. (2011, October). Raising engagement in e-learning through gamification. In Proc. 6th International
Conference on Virtual Learning ICVL (Vol. 1).

Surendeleg, G., Murwa, V., Yun, H. K., & Kim, Y. S. (2014). The role of gamification in education-a literature
review. Contemporary Engineering Sciences, 7(29), 1609-1616.

UNESCO. (2012).

U.S. Department of Education. https://tech.ed.gov/netp/leadership

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